“In prison!”
“Yes.”
“What for?—What’s he done?”
Jip went over to the door and smelt at the bottom of it to see if anyone were listening outside. Then he came back to the Doctor on tiptoe and whispered,
“He killed a man!”
“Lord preserve us!” cried the Doctor, sitting down heavily in a chair and mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. “When did he do it?”
“Fifteen years ago—in a Mexican goldmine. That’s why he has been a hermit ever since. He shaved off his beard and kept away from people out there on the marshes so he wouldn’t be recognized. But last week, it seems these newfangled policemen came to Town; and they heard there was a strange man who kept to himself all alone in a shack on the fen. And they got suspicious. For a long time people had been hunting all over the world for the man that did that killing in the Mexican goldmine fifteen years ago. So these policemen went out to the shack, and they recognized Luke by a mole on his arm. And they took him to prison.”
“Well, well!” murmured the Doctor. “Who would have thought it?—Luke, the philosopher!—Killed a man!—I can hardly believe it.”
“It’s true enough—unfortunately,” said Jip. “Luke did it. But it wasn’t his fault. Bob says so. And he was there and saw it all. He was scarcely more than a puppy at the time. Bob says Luke couldn’t help it. He had to do it.”
“Where is Bob now?” asked the Doctor.
“Down at the prison. I wanted him to come with me here to see you; but he won’t leave the prison while Luke is there. He just sits outside the door of the prison-cell and won’t move. He doesn’t even eat the food they give him. Won’t you please come down there, Doctor, and see if there is anything you can do? The trial is to be this afternoon at two o’clock. What time is it now?”
“It’s ten minutes past one.”
“Bob says he thinks they are going to kill Luke for a punishment if they can prove that he did it—or certainly keep him in prison for the rest of his life. Won’t you please come? Perhaps if you spoke to the judge and told him what a good man Luke really is they’d let him off.”
“Of course I’ll come,” said the Doctor getting up and moving to go. “But I’m very much afraid that I shan’t be of any real help.” He turned at the door and hesitated thoughtfully.
“And yet—I wonder—”
Then he opened the door and passed out with Jip and me close at his heels.
IV
Bob
Dab-Dab was terribly upset when she found we were going away again without luncheon; and she made us take some cold porkpies in our pockets to eat on the way.
When we got to Puddleby Courthouse (it was next door to the prison), we found a great crowd gathered around the building.
This was the week of the Assizes—a business which happened every three months, when many pickpockets and other bad characters were tried by a very grand judge who came all the way from London. And anybody in Puddleby who had nothing special to do used to come to the Courthouse to hear the trials.
But today it was different. The crowd was not made up of just a few idle people. It was enormous. The news had run through the countryside that Luke the Hermit was to be tried for killing a man and that the great mystery which had hung over him so long was to be cleared up at last. The butcher and the baker had closed their shops and taken a holiday. All the farmers from roundabout, and all the townsfolk, were there with their Sunday clothes on, trying to get seats in the Courthouse or gossipping outside in low whispers. The High Street was so crowded you could hardly move along it. I had never seen the quiet old town in such a state of excitement before. For Puddleby had not had such an Assizes since 1799, when Ferdinand Phipps, the Rector’s oldest son, had robbed the bank.
If I hadn’t had the Doctor with me I am sure I would never have been able to make my way through the mob packed around the Courthouse door. But I just followed behind him, hanging on to his coattails; and at last we got safely into the jail.
“I want to see Luke,” said the Doctor to a very grand person in a blue coat with brass buttons standing at the door.
“Ask at the Superintendent’s office,” said the man. “Third door on the left down the corridor.”
“Who is that person you spoke to, Doctor?” I asked as we went along the passage.
“He is a policeman.”
“And what are policemen?”
“Policemen? They are to keep people in order. They’ve just been invented—by Sir Robert Peel. That’s why they are also called ‘peelers’ sometimes. It is a wonderful age we live in. They’re always thinking of something new—This will be the Superintendent’s office, I suppose.”
From there another policeman was sent with us to show us the way.
Outside the door of Luke’s cell we found Bob, the bulldog, who wagged his tail sadly when he saw us. The man who was guiding us took a large bunch of keys from his pocket and opened the door.
I had never been inside a real prison-cell before; and I felt quite a thrill when the policeman went out and locked the door after him, leaving us shut in the dimly-lighted, little, stone room. Before he went, he said that as soon as we had done talking with our friend we should knock upon the door and he would come and let us out.
At first I could hardly see anything, it was so dim inside. But after a little I made out a low bed against the wall, under a small barred window. On the bed, staring down at the floor between his feet, sat the Hermit, his head resting in
